Good Friday - Lenten Lunch

Good Friday is remembered. It is hard to say it is celebrated.

The church remembers by having ‘solemn assemblies’. If communion is given, often the covering for the bread and wine is black instead of the usual white.

It is often a day of prayer and fasting, designed to help us identify with the difficulty of that day in Jesus’ life.

Beginning with the kiss of Judas on the cheek of Jesus, He is arrested and taken to the house of Annas, Caiaphas’ f-i-l. Then on to Caiaphas and the assembled Sanhedrin.

Conflicting testimony is given at this farce of a trial, held illegally in the pre-dawn hours of Good Friday. While inside Peter, who is outside, denies Jesus 3 times.

Jesus is condemned and taken to Pilate. Both Jesus and responsibility for Him is shuffled back and forth between authorities until the Jewish leadership convinces the crowd to demand His crucifixion.

Jesus is whipped, crowned with thorns and taken to Golgotha He is hung on a cross. He hangs there for six hours. From 9a to 3p.

Darkness descended on the earth from noon until 3:00. It was a darkness of the activity (presence) of God. We know of God as light. Darkness is ‘out of character’ from what we are used to. But this was the darkness of the judgement of God.

Matthew 24:29 ESV

29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

There were 153 people Jesus had a personal encounter with to the point of acting in their lives. From casting out the unclean spirit in to the forgiveness of the thief on the cross next to Him. I wonder where they were that day.

Because He became sin, Jesus recognizes the absence of God and cries out ‘Father, why have you forsaken me?”. Later He exclaims “tetelestai”. Common term for a servant to tell his master: I am finished with what you gave me to do.

Joseph of Arimathaea secured his body to be prepared for burial. They placed Him in a tomb. At the prompting of the pharisees, the stone was not just placed, but sealed and guarded.

As dark as the earth was for those three hours from noon to 3, it had to ‘feel’ even darker when the stone was placed.

Christian philosopher after the death of his 24 yr old son: If I had never met you, walked with you, worshipped with you - I would not feel the pain of your absence.